Traditionally, vehicle suspension systems improve the ride and handling performance of a vehicle by utilizing passive or semi-active dampers. Within the suspension system, dampers prevent response overshoots and minimize unavoidable resonances within a vehicle such as those resonances caused by uneven roadways.
In the past, dampers were designed with solid elements, but recently, dampers have been designed with hydraulic or intelligent fluids to dissipate mechanical vibration energy through friction and viscosity as heat. Suspension systems utilize these dampers to improve the ride and handling performance of the vehicle, but at the cost of losing power during the dissipation. For a single vehicle using four dampers, the loss of power can be approximately two horsepower, which significantly affects vehicle performance.
Therefore, for reasons such as to increase fuel economy, it is desirable to have a regenerative suspension system that recovers the power lost during dissipation of mechanical vibration energy within the dampers.